One thing I've learned over the years is that Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is an ongoing process not a one-time project. Potential clients often call and ask how much is it to optimize my site, or what kind of guarantee do you offer?

Let me set the record straight. Search Engines are dynamic in nature. Google is basically an index of the internet similar to how a library indexes book, Google Indexes the Web. Is the Library ever finished indexing?

SE's use ranking algorithms which are frequently changed (Google often makes changes in October - at least in 2006 - 2008). This is just on reason why it's not enough to do SEO one time.

SEO must be continually updated, refined, tested, and refined again. Since SEO is an ongoing process the results can take from weeks to months and even years depending on your goals so you'll need to be patient.

Often times some SEO firms will use tricks that can help speed up the process but these usually only help for the short term and could eventually hurt more than help. A long term SEO plan should focus on a sustainable method (which I will cover in future posts).

SE's focus is on the end user (your potential customer) so your focus should be the same. In order to succeed (meaning better Organic positions for your key words), you need to focus on creating better content for your users and giving them what they want (which is usually information). When you master that, your results will do better in the Organic SERPs (Non-paid Search Engine Results Pages).

In future posts I will discuss some of the best practices of Search Engine Optimization including:

Keyword Research: How to generate and utilize keywords to effectively help with Organic SERPs.

Meta Elements (Description, keywords): The importance of meta elementsand how to properly utilize them for effective SERPs.

Page Titles and Robot Text: Best practices to optimize your page titles and use of Robot text for easy crawling

Headers or Headline Tags: Best practices for optimal SERPs.

Quality Content: Best practices for writing and creating quality (not quantity) content for both your end user and the search engines.